


Interior Languages

by poisontaster



Series: Heart 'Verse [29]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Established Relationship, Ficlet, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Permanent Injury, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-20
Updated: 2006-05-20
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:31:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5874211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's having a bad night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interior Languages

At the best of times, Sam isn't a heavy sleeper; hasn't been in years, between nightmares, visions and injury and latterly with the stewardship of twenty some 'spook' kids and regular mundane school emergencies.

So when—in the middle of the night—Dean whimpers, Sam is preprogrammed to shoot up out of sleep, groping blindly for the thick-muscled spur of Dean's shoulder. "Dean?" His voice is thick and muzzy, still half in his throat. He clears it and tries again. "Dean?"

Dean doesn't answer, fucked up leg outstretched rigidly. Both hands gripping his thigh as he rocks back and forth. He's bitten through his lip, crimson beaded up beneath his teeth.

Sam blinks the last sleep from his eyes and twists from his belly to upright, closing his own hands over pitted and ruined skin of Dean's leg. It's trembling and hot with cramp. Sam digs in hard with his thumbs and the tips of his fingers all along the edges of the old wound, where muscle and flesh are missing and never replaced. "It's okay," he murmurs reflexively, wincing in commiseration as Dean hisses and whimpers in pain. Dean's hands retreat to clench into taut white knuckled fists and the blood starts to run down his chin as he bites deeper. "It's okay, Dean, I'm right here, it's okay…"

Finally, Sam feels the knots start to release. Dean cries out, sharp and piercing, nearly a sob. Sam's got sweat on his back and dampening his hair. He keeps one hand massaging Dean's leg, more gently, but he puts the other on Dean's back, between his shoulder blades and rubs in soft circles.

At last, Dean gives the small twitch that Sam knows means _I'm done with this now_ and slides gingerly down the mattress to lie back. Sam lies next to him and keeps his hands to himself. These are the moment's he'd most like to touch Dean, reassuring himself of the solidity of Dean's flesh and offering all the things Dean won't accept from him verbally. Of course, they're also the times Dean can stand it the least, drawing in on himself and exuding a kind of cold and steely anger that it's taken years for Sam not to take personally. He knows he's not the easiest person to sleep with either.

After a minute, he gets up, fetches a Vicodin from the medicine cabinet by touch, fills a glass with water and leaves them both by the bedside table on Dean's side without comment. He's moving away when Dean's hand shoots out and bracelets his wrist.

"What?" Sam asks.

"Lie on me," Dean says, and it hovers somewhere between question and command.

"Dean, I…" _I'll crush you. I don't want to hurt you._ He thinks both of them. Neither are anything he could or would say. Not to Dean. His breath goes out of him and he puts his knee down on the mattress next to Dean's hip. "Move over."

Dean does, grunting and grimacing. Sam stops halfway on the bed. "Take your pill," he says, impatience sneaking in. Dean growls wordlessly and levers himself upon his elbows while Sam settles his hip on the mattress next to Dean and runs his fingers over Dean's good leg, gold-dark hair ticking and rasping against his fingers.

Eventually, though, they settle, Sam cradled between Dean's legs, his feet off the mattress entirely. "You okay?" he asks Dean, listening to the slow, emphatic thump of Dean's heart. Dean has the strongest, steadiest heart of anyone he's ever known.

"Yeah." Dean sounds a little breathless yet, but Sam knows better than to call him on it. "You?"

"Yeah."


End file.
